Don’t Indian TV news business and Bollywood have the same problem?

The first 12 months of Covid pandemic in 2020 created a winner in news channels and a loser in cinema halls, and by that extension Hindi/Bollywood cinema.

In the first one year of Covid, people were glued on to news channels to get information about the deadly virus, understand what is happening around them and also to get updates and solutions. The Covid was a huge event that got audiences glued to TV news to know what is in store for them next. To the credit of news channels, they rose to the occasion, with the reporters, the cameramen, and the TV newsroom professionals working overtime to make sure they shared news real-time and in public interest. 

On the contrary, cinema halls, because of the restrictions, were shut down, and OTT became the mainstay of entertainment. These platforms offered a plethora of new & interesting content and made the viewers accustomed to watching in the safe confines at their home.

As the face-to-face/physical economy came back, thanks to the vaccination drive by the Indian government and Covid subsiding, the experiential economy came back roaring. Weddings, hotels, restaurants, airlines, malls, parties, schools, offices all came back with a vengeance, but the cinema halls in North India did not seem to confirm to this trend as quickly. Even after the Covid restriction were lifted from cinema halls in North India, not many were walking into theatres then. However, in contrast, the South Indian cinema continued to thrive, giving one hit after the other. The South Indian blockbusters soon became bigger and bigger, thanks to their record collection at box office. This drew in record footfalls at theatres as movie lovers thronged cinemas to watch these films. RRR, PS1, Pushpa were big hits by any past standards and the biggest hits of Bollywood weren’t even close.

It made me, and many like me, think what was going on and what are the reasons behind the differential performance of Bollywood vis a vis south cinema. Being a cinema aficionado, I love to watch movies in a cinema hall. In-fact, in the middle of February 2021, when the corona wave subsided and restrictions were relaxed for a while, I went to a multiplex in South Delhi to watch a movie and saw only six more viewers along with me in the hall. It left me thinking, and I have been thinking about it for the last six months. 

I, like many people in my industry, wondered what was happening, and why? I have been thinking what happened to the charm of Bollywood? 

Meanwhile, parallelly, news channels continued to do well and their revenues continued to be steady. In fact, the revenues grew in the first 21 months of Covid. However, post-April this year, the viewership of some leading news channels dropped, and I did write a piece asking some basic questions on TV ratings mechanism, which btw still remain unanswered. I still believe that there is a lot that needs to be done to improve ratings and make it tamper-proof.  However, what has been worrying me more is the fact that news channel/TV viewership, as per ratings research, is not growing. Now, we have to investigate what are the factors responsible for this. I watch news two-three hours a day. I can live without cinema, however not without TV news. I have been like this since 1991, watching Doordarshan, then CNN, and in the last 20 years, all the leading news channels. It’s my job too to watch news and I do take it seriously, but more importantly, I enjoy tuning into news TV. 

Let’s look at the historical context, Indian TV news business has been dependent on four Cs which are Crime, Cricket, Cinema, and say in last six years, Cacophony… I mean the TV debates in studios.  

So, what has changed about news TV that is not helping it grow its audiences?

Is there an issue with the way audience measurement is organised? Possible. Does the system favour entertainment channels? I don’t know. I don’t think so. However, I am only asking legitimate questions. In fact, four years back, possibly the most celebrated Indian media leader, who has turned into an entrepreneur partnering with India's biggest business owner and the world’s leading media owner, complained about the falling universe of entertainment content on Indian TV and asked some hard-hitting and serious questions. This media leader was amongst the few handful who were founding members of the viewership rating mechanism and served on all media industry bodies and wielded a clout and credibility.

The question is why did a celebrated media leader question the viewership decline with some straightforward basic questions even when it came to entertainment TV content? Why was he not satisfied? Were his questions addressed? The only thing you may want to factor in is that he is now a shareholder in a leading sports broadcaster who is also a shareholder in the entertainment platform. The point is that those questions should be, and are, raised by all news TV owners, CEOs and editors too as they are basic questions. Why is the news TV viewership shrinking? 

If for a moment we take the TV news viewership data and its universe on face value, we have to ask what are the reasons for news TV viewership universe to not grow?  If the stagnation or the shrink is indeed true, rather than blaming everyone else and the business media that reports it honestly, the news TV promoters and CEOs and editors have to introspect. They will find the answers, and if they ask the right questions, hopefully the solutions. However, in my view, the reasons that the TV news audience is not growing and the reason that Bollywood is not being able to pull audiences in the cinemas, is same, and here they are: 

1. Sticking to old formulas of doing content, not bringing in freshness, not reinventing and not investing in content that is deep. The re-invention needs to happen for both Bollywood and news TV, fast and at a scale.
   
   
2. New challengers are chipping at the existing players. New talent and ideas have to be given more credence and experiments with content and boldness of content has to be showcased, and if it works, expanded on. WION is a great example of this and there are multiple reasons why WION eventually did well, but digital traction and differentiated content are two main reasons.
   
   
3. We need younger leaders both in news TV domain in all functions, especially editorial and in Bollywood.
   
   
4. Both have to stop taking shortcuts. Let me explain this. In news TV, some news TV broadcasters are tom-tomming they being number one inspite of the fact that most of their ratings come from the investments they do in landing pages and not content or marketing. How convenient! In Bollywood, the shortcuts are big stars, big directors and the safe scripts.

5. Audiences, both in news TV and Bollywood, have tasted new blood. Viewers are consuming video content online from news startups that are not linear but only digital and bold and honest. The same goes for Bollywood; newer directors are experimenting with bold themes and scripts and taking up taboo issues which are real and appeal to audiences.
   
   
6. Scale has to be multiple times larger than now, and the content and delivery have to be scaled up. In news TV, Indian news broadcasters have to learn from my favourite news TV channel CNN; how they invest in their people, how they cover an event, nurture the anchors and brands and are not dependent on one face for pulling audiences. South cinema can inspire Bollywood by its sheer scale, quality of production, investments and marketing blitzkrieg.

While the audience measurement system needs to be fixed and made more honest, leading broadcasters can shun the landing pages to get real and be honest about their actual viewership. You can only improve what you can measure. If you take out full page adverts when the landing pages give you viewership, who are you kidding? Is sense of false achievement and you are lulling and you are telling your teams and the ecosystem that this is ok and whoever can outspend on landing pages can fool their promoters, internal colleagues and the advertisers. Na na, that’s fool hardy. Get real guys.

The only people who benefit from this are those who want to game the news TV ecosystem. Don’t fall prey to them.

Truth must prevail and it will prevail. 

Dr Annurag Batra has been writing on media for two-plus decades and is the Founder of exchange4media and the Editor-in-Chief of BW Businessworld.